Cree NDP candidate “stunned” by BQ candidate’s comments

Saganash is the NDP candidate in the riding of the Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou. (PHOTO/NDP)

Romeo Saganash, a Cree leader and lawyer who is running for the New Democratic Party in the Abitibi-James Bay-Nunavik-Eeyou riding, says he is “totally stunned” by comments made by the riding’s incumbent member of Parliament.

On March 31, the Bloc Québécois’ Yvon Lévesque, who wants to be re-elected, told the newspaper Rue Frontenac that “some voters will no longer support the NDP now that the party is running an aboriginal candidate.”

“I didn’t think I would hear things like that in 2011,” Saganash told Nunatsiaq News. “It’s unfortunate that people still think like that.”

Saganash, originally from Waswanipi, is one of two aboriginal candidates running in the riding, where Inukjuak resident Johnny Kasudluak is representing the Green Party.

Saganash, who campaigned in the Algonquin community of Lac Simone over the past weekend, said he met with many Cree and Algonquin people who say they are “hurt and very disappointed” by Lévesque’s comment.

In a statement, the Bloc candidate apologized to Saganash, “as well as to all aboriginals of Quebec.”

“My words were totally inappropriate and I retract them,” he wrote.

But Saganash says Lévesque never bothered calling him directly.

Lévesque also forgot to apologize to non-aboriginal Quebecers in the riding “because he essentially called them racist too,” Saganash said.

BQ leader Gilles Duceppe has brushed off calls by NDP leader Jack Layton to remove Lévesque as a candidate, calling Lévesque’s comment “a mistake.”

Lévesque has represented Quebec’s largest riding — which includes all of Nunavik and the Cree lands — since he was first elected in 2004.

Saganash, who has worked with the Grand Council of Crees for three decades, said he will raise issues relevant to the riding’s aboriginal communities during the election campaign, such as the housing shortage and resource development.

But Saganash said he wants people to vote for him on the issues he stands for, not because he is Cree.